The Bookshelf

As a kid, my favorite phrase was, "How do you know?" This is an incomplete and ever-expanding answer.

Books I love

The Hour of Our Death by Philippe AríesTreasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe edited by Martina Bagnoli, Holger A. Klein, C. Griffith Mann and James RobinsonWhy Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? by Robert BartlettHoly Anorexia by Rudolph M. BellItalian Memorial Sculpture 1820-1940: A Legacy of Love by Sandra Berresford with photographs by Robert W. Fichter and Robert FreidusImages and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Painting by Jonathan BrownThe Body and Society by Peter BrownThe Cult of the Saints by Peter BrownThrough the Eye of a Needle by Peter BrownA Philosophical Enquiry by Edmund BurkeMadonnas that Maim by Michael P. CarrollVeiled Threats: The Logic of Popular Catholicism in Italy by Michael P. CarrollThe Bad Popes by E. R. ChamberlinDevoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint by R. Andrew ChesnutMetamorphosis of a Death Symbol: The Transi Tomb in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Kathleen R. CohenCorpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History of Burial by Penny ColmanSaints Behaving Badly by Thomas J. CraughwellSaints Preserved: An Encyclopedia of Relics by Thomas J. CraughwellThe Incorruptibles: A Study of the Incorruption of the Bodies of Various Catholic Saints and Beati by Joan Carroll CruzWaxing Eloquent: Italian Portraits in Wax edited by Andrea DaninosAfterlives of the Saints: Stories from the Ends of Faith by Colin DickeyOn Ugliness edited by Umberto EcoThe Square Halo by Sally FisherSepulchers by Ugo FoscoloHoly Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe by Charles FreemanTortures and Torments of the Christian Martyrs by Rev. Antonio GallonioFurta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages by Patrick J. GearyDeath and Resurrection in Art, The Getty MuseumPalladio’s Rome edited and translated b Vaughan Hart and Peter HicksThe Danse Macabre of Women: Ms. Fr. 995 of the Bibliothèque Nationale by Ann Tukey Harrison and Sandra HindmanGesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity by Andrea de JorioEmpire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses by Paul KoudounarisHeavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs by Paul KoudounarisMemento Mori by Paul KoudounarisRag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead by Peter ManseauThe Romantic Agony by Mario PrazThe Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession and the Everlasting Dead by Heather PringleIl Ponte di San Giacomo by Luigi M. Lombardi Satriani and Mariano MeligranaPurgatory Explained by the Lives and Legends of the Saints by Dr. F. X. Schouppe, S.J.The Living and the Dead: The Neapolitan Cult of the Skull by Margaret StrattonSaints in Rome and Beyond by Rev. Daniel ThelenForgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, Ca 500-1100 by Jane Tibbetts SchulenburgDe Profundis by Carlo Vannini and Ivan CenziLa Veglia Eterna by Carlo Vannini and Ivan CenziButler’s Lives of the Saints edited by Michael WalshThe Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal by Hubert Wolf

Pro tip: many churches, particularly in Europe, publish small paperback books or pamphlets on the architecture, artwork and history of the parish. If you don’t see them, it’s often worth asking the sacristan.